Publishers Lunch yesterday, and booktrade.info today, draw attention to reports that the head of Penguin Group UK's operations, Anthony Forbes Watson, is 'leaving the company' after fifteen years. You can find the brief Reuters report here. The stated reason for Watson's departure is 'differences on the way forward' for Penguin and Dorling Kindersley.
Hmm. I wonder what 'leaving the company' means? Does it mean that Watson got fed up and resigned, or that he was sacked?
Anyway, before we go any further let me make it clear that I see no cause for rejoicing over any person's career coming unglued. Whether Watson left voluntarily or was booted out, the fact is that things have not gone smoothly at Penguin in the past year, and no one can take any pleasure in that. (Except, possibly, Penguin's competitors; and even they, if they are smart, will realise that there but for the grace of God....)
The chief problem (to bring new readers up to date) is that, in the early part of last year, Penguin opened a brand-new warehouse and distribution centre. It was designed to be a state-of-the-art installation, and would, it was claimed, save them oodles of money. The whole system was, as you would expect, heavily computerised. And unfortunately it turned out that the software didn't work. The result, sadly, was quite a lot of chassis, if I may quote Sean O'Casey.
The failure of the new warehouse system meant that books were not being delivered to booksellers; not, at any rate, until long after they had been ordered, and well after customers had got tired of waiting and had bought something published by a firm other than Penguin.
Writers and agents were severely displeased. The Society of Authors set about trying to negotiate compensation for lost sales. These negotiations failed, by the way.
The estimated loss to Penguin was put at £20m to £30m. Which is a hell of a lot of money, by any standards. Penguin's parent company, Pearson, was forced to announce that annual profits would be at the low end of market expectations because of the warehouse problems and a slowdown in the U.S. consumer book sector. That last bit was, I suspect, strictly a face-saving exercise.
So far as one can tell, the warehouse system still isn't working particularly well. Or let's put it this way: Penguin has not invited journalists to have a look round and marvel at the wonders of science and technology. (Pity about the books, though, isn't it? If only someone could program a computer to write books, so that those damned authors wouldn't keep making a nuisance of themselves.)
This debacle led a number of observers, such as Publishers Lunch and yours truly, to wonder whether, in the course of time, anyone would be held responsible -- because a disaster of major proportions is what it was. And now it seems somebody has. Possibly. Though you would never know from the Penguin press release. The overall Penguin CEO, John Makinson, says of Watson that 'in the face of our distribution difficulties last year, he led the business with distinction and delivered a remarkable publishing performance, which leaves our UK business with a very healthy outlook. Anthony fully deserves the enormous respect that he commands both inside Penguin and throughout our industry and I'd like to thank him for the energy, commitment and achievement that he has brought to Penguin.'
Well, as it happens, I have some sympathy with people who get caught with massive software development schemes that go wrong. About fifteen years ago I had regular dealings with a man who was responsible for a major computer development in the UK national health service. It went wrong, of course -- these things do, more often than not -- and the man in charge was hauled before a House of Commons committee, in the full glare of the television lights, to explain himself. He did not have a happy time.
That experience was sufficient to prove to me that handling these big schemes is no easy matter. In the years since then, of course, there have been umpteen similar cases; see almost any issue of Private Eye for the latest example.
As far as the book world is concerned, ample warning of the possible difficulties was provided by the case of Tiptree. In 1992, Tiptree was declared book distributor of the year, but when they tried to introduce a new and improved warehouse system, everything went pear-shaped. You can read a case history of it all here.
Will the Penguin disaster also be the subject of a full enquiry, the results of which are made fully available to the public? Given the culture of commercial confidentiality, and the desire to bury the past as quickly as possible, I very much doubt it.
Meanwhile, the job formerly done by Anthony Forbes Watson will be taken on by the overall Penguin CEO, John Makinson. He apparently feels that he can do that job, and continue with his present duties, without too much trouble. He intends to announce how he will proceed 'in a few days'.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Hoaxing PublishAmerica
You may recall that on 28 January I referred briefly to vanity presses (to use a convenient shorthand term), i.e. firms which will publish more or less anything by more or less anyone. And I mentioned that PublishAmerica is somewhat controversial because it claims to be different from the average vanity firm; it makes itself out to be a traditional mainstream publisher, with a selection process that turns down certain books. PublishAmerica demands no up-front fees from authors, and pays an advance (albeit only $1; but hey, that's a bigger advance than you get out of some).
Personally I can't get very excited about this controversy over whether PublishAmerica is a mainstream or vanity firm or something in between. It seems pretty plain to me that whether PublishAmerica is a vanity press or not, anyone who publishes a book through them is unlikely to sell many copies unless they have a lot of close friends who are prepared to go out and buy it.
However, it seems that some in the book world took serious offence at PublishAmerica's various claims, and set out to show that they ain't true. A group of writers (and some non-writers) who are members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organisation set out to write a novel which was undeniably awful. Under the co-ordination of James D. Macdonald, each author was given minimal information from which to write a chapter (with no idea of the chapter's location in the book, time of year, background of the characters, what the plot was, et cetera), and encouraged to write poorly. You can find the whole story here.
The result of this many-handed collaboration is claimed, proudly, to be a 'truly awful book, a serious contender for Absolute Worst Book Ever Written.' The result was submitted 'for review' by PublishAmerica to see if it was 'what this book publisher is looking for.' And, er, well, PublishAmerica offered a contract.
Point proved, no doubt. PublishAmerica really will publish more or less anything by more or less anybody. But I think we knew that anyway, didn't we? OK, so PublishAmerica exaggerates a little. But doesn't every company? And at least they're not asking you to invest your life savings. On the whole, the SFWA effort seems to me to be a sledgehammer and nut thing, but everyone must exercise their own judgement on that.
Be that as it may, the point of this post is to say that I have read some of the ms of this novel, and it seems to me to be very funny -- which I believe is what some of the authors intended it to be. If you want to take a look at it yourself you can find it here in PDF form. It's free.
Suggestion: Don't left-click on the PDF link (as I did at first without much luck, because the file will then try to open in your browser, and I guess will do so if you have unlimited patience). It is better, I suspect, to right click and then save the file to your desktop. It will then download quietly in the background while you do something else. After which you can open the file in Adobe Reader, as usual.
As I say, the PDF version of the novel is free. But the SFWA have arranged for the book to be printed too. Any sales profit goes to the SFWA's emergency medical fund. (I understand they've sold about 75 copies so far.) The book version is printed and published through Lulu, which the SFWA describes as a Print On Demand company which doesn't pretend to be anything else, and which to me looks like a very interesting and go-ahead firm. The world of printing and publishing is certainly changing fast.
Personally I can't get very excited about this controversy over whether PublishAmerica is a mainstream or vanity firm or something in between. It seems pretty plain to me that whether PublishAmerica is a vanity press or not, anyone who publishes a book through them is unlikely to sell many copies unless they have a lot of close friends who are prepared to go out and buy it.
However, it seems that some in the book world took serious offence at PublishAmerica's various claims, and set out to show that they ain't true. A group of writers (and some non-writers) who are members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organisation set out to write a novel which was undeniably awful. Under the co-ordination of James D. Macdonald, each author was given minimal information from which to write a chapter (with no idea of the chapter's location in the book, time of year, background of the characters, what the plot was, et cetera), and encouraged to write poorly. You can find the whole story here.
The result of this many-handed collaboration is claimed, proudly, to be a 'truly awful book, a serious contender for Absolute Worst Book Ever Written.' The result was submitted 'for review' by PublishAmerica to see if it was 'what this book publisher is looking for.' And, er, well, PublishAmerica offered a contract.
Point proved, no doubt. PublishAmerica really will publish more or less anything by more or less anybody. But I think we knew that anyway, didn't we? OK, so PublishAmerica exaggerates a little. But doesn't every company? And at least they're not asking you to invest your life savings. On the whole, the SFWA effort seems to me to be a sledgehammer and nut thing, but everyone must exercise their own judgement on that.
Be that as it may, the point of this post is to say that I have read some of the ms of this novel, and it seems to me to be very funny -- which I believe is what some of the authors intended it to be. If you want to take a look at it yourself you can find it here in PDF form. It's free.
Suggestion: Don't left-click on the PDF link (as I did at first without much luck, because the file will then try to open in your browser, and I guess will do so if you have unlimited patience). It is better, I suspect, to right click and then save the file to your desktop. It will then download quietly in the background while you do something else. After which you can open the file in Adobe Reader, as usual.
As I say, the PDF version of the novel is free. But the SFWA have arranged for the book to be printed too. Any sales profit goes to the SFWA's emergency medical fund. (I understand they've sold about 75 copies so far.) The book version is printed and published through Lulu, which the SFWA describes as a Print On Demand company which doesn't pretend to be anything else, and which to me looks like a very interesting and go-ahead firm. The world of printing and publishing is certainly changing fast.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
More on children's books; and branding
Yesterday I ventured to suggest that selling large numbers of children's books was not easy to achieve, and especially so for a new publisher. And later yesterday booktrade.info provided a link to an article in the Sunday Times which proves that even established firms can find the children's market very hard going.
Tessa Strickland and Nancy Traversy set up Barefoot Books, a children's book publishing company, some eleven years ago. They did well at first, but in 2002 ran into serious trouble. Expansion into the US market had created all kinds of problems and they made a loss of £1.3m on sales of only £2.4m.
One of their attempts to improve the situation involved asking for help from the Sunday Times bunch of pundits. The experts made a number of suggestions, the chief of which seems to have been to increase brand awareness. Barefoot have apparently achieved this 'brand awareness' by linking themselves to companies which complement their products -- in this case companies which market stuff to parents who value quality over the mass market. They also persevered with a 'stallholder' scheme, whereby mothers effectively act as the company's agents or sub-contractors. The mums buy books from Barefoot at a discount and sell them on to friends or any other market they can find.
Result: the company's financial position is much improved. In the latest full year profits are at $200,000 on sales of $5m. And no, I don't understand why one year's figures are quoted in pounds and another's in dollars, either.
Personally I think it is very difficult indeed to establish a brand-name consciousness in publishing. At least 98% of readers don't give a tuppenny whatsit who publishes the books they read. Readers just simply never notice the publisher's name. It's there, on the cover and the title page and the copyright page, but their eyes just glide over it. If they like a book, however, they will go out and look for other stuff by the same author; and quite often such books are put out by different publishers, but the readers won't notice or care.
With excellent timing, booktrade.info also provides a link to an article from the New York Times, reprinted in The Ledger for some reason, which tells us that Jane Friedman, the boss lady of HarperCollins, is trying to make the name of that firm as recognisable as the brand names of some of her big authors, such as Michael Crichton.
Well, to my mind that is a totally lost cause. For one thing, there is no real consistency of product, not even among the offerings put out by a major player such as HC. A Michael Crichton book is simply not even the same as a book by another famous name -- and it definitely isn't the same as an HC book by an unknown, or a book in a different genre.
To my mind, the nearest thing to a real brand name that was ever achieved by a UK publisher was about 40 to 50 years ago, by the firm of Victor Gollancz. In those days, all Gollancz books had the same distinct look: the dust jackets were all bright yellow, with black lettering. The only difference between them was the title of the book and the author's name.
This was very helpful to me, for one. In those days I was reading mostly crime fiction, and Gollancz had a strong list. So I could go to the crime section of the local library, look for the books with a bright yellow cover, and be fairly sure that they were at least worth a try. Gollancz published the early John Le Carre. They also had a strong line in science fiction, with books like Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan.
But I don't think Jane Friedman is going to use bright yellow covers on the whole of her HC output.
The NYT article has a whole lot more on the branding of publishing companies, none of it very convincing.
Tessa Strickland and Nancy Traversy set up Barefoot Books, a children's book publishing company, some eleven years ago. They did well at first, but in 2002 ran into serious trouble. Expansion into the US market had created all kinds of problems and they made a loss of £1.3m on sales of only £2.4m.
One of their attempts to improve the situation involved asking for help from the Sunday Times bunch of pundits. The experts made a number of suggestions, the chief of which seems to have been to increase brand awareness. Barefoot have apparently achieved this 'brand awareness' by linking themselves to companies which complement their products -- in this case companies which market stuff to parents who value quality over the mass market. They also persevered with a 'stallholder' scheme, whereby mothers effectively act as the company's agents or sub-contractors. The mums buy books from Barefoot at a discount and sell them on to friends or any other market they can find.
Result: the company's financial position is much improved. In the latest full year profits are at $200,000 on sales of $5m. And no, I don't understand why one year's figures are quoted in pounds and another's in dollars, either.
Personally I think it is very difficult indeed to establish a brand-name consciousness in publishing. At least 98% of readers don't give a tuppenny whatsit who publishes the books they read. Readers just simply never notice the publisher's name. It's there, on the cover and the title page and the copyright page, but their eyes just glide over it. If they like a book, however, they will go out and look for other stuff by the same author; and quite often such books are put out by different publishers, but the readers won't notice or care.
With excellent timing, booktrade.info also provides a link to an article from the New York Times, reprinted in The Ledger for some reason, which tells us that Jane Friedman, the boss lady of HarperCollins, is trying to make the name of that firm as recognisable as the brand names of some of her big authors, such as Michael Crichton.
Well, to my mind that is a totally lost cause. For one thing, there is no real consistency of product, not even among the offerings put out by a major player such as HC. A Michael Crichton book is simply not even the same as a book by another famous name -- and it definitely isn't the same as an HC book by an unknown, or a book in a different genre.
To my mind, the nearest thing to a real brand name that was ever achieved by a UK publisher was about 40 to 50 years ago, by the firm of Victor Gollancz. In those days, all Gollancz books had the same distinct look: the dust jackets were all bright yellow, with black lettering. The only difference between them was the title of the book and the author's name.
This was very helpful to me, for one. In those days I was reading mostly crime fiction, and Gollancz had a strong list. So I could go to the crime section of the local library, look for the books with a bright yellow cover, and be fairly sure that they were at least worth a try. Gollancz published the early John Le Carre. They also had a strong line in science fiction, with books like Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan.
But I don't think Jane Friedman is going to use bright yellow covers on the whole of her HC output.
The NYT article has a whole lot more on the branding of publishing companies, none of it very convincing.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Fame and glory
You may perhaps be aware that there are a number of prizes or awards for blogs (as for virtually everything else), and the nominations for the title of best weblog of 2005, in various categories, are now available. I'm afraid it appears to be too late to vote, but never mind, you might find a link to an interesting site.
The Bloggies are now in their fifth year, and so I suppose they have achieved a certain amount of prestige. Unfortunately, the GOB didn't get shortlisted for a Bloggie -- dammit -- but all is not lost, because the GOB did get listed by the Guardian as one of the top ten literary blogs. Which is nice. 'Intelligent and unfailingly interesting' says the Guardian. Very flattering indeed. The only trouble is, I now have to try to live up to the hype.
The Bloggies are now in their fifth year, and so I suppose they have achieved a certain amount of prestige. Unfortunately, the GOB didn't get shortlisted for a Bloggie -- dammit -- but all is not lost, because the GOB did get listed by the Guardian as one of the top ten literary blogs. Which is nice. 'Intelligent and unfailingly interesting' says the Guardian. Very flattering indeed. The only trouble is, I now have to try to live up to the hype.
Can we trust The Times any longer?
In the 1950s a schoolmaster of mine was able to test the accuracy of the reporting of the UK newspapers which were then in existence. During the school holidays, there was a minor fire in one of the school buildings. This event was reported in every national newspaper, though there wasn't much damage; so it must have been a slow day for news.
'500 boys homeless!' screamed the Daily Mirror; though nobody was homeless because the fire wasn't in that sort of a building, and in any case the boys weren't there. The Times, on the other hand, got the details almost dead right, with one trivial exception.
This was pretty much what one would expect, and people of my age generally regard the Times as an authoritative source of accurate news. But by golly I'm beginning to wonder. Saturday's edition carried two very dubious articles.
First, there was a report about a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Emma Maree Urquhart, whose first novel, Dragon Tamers, is said to have sold 50,000 copies. This story was also featured on Sky television news on Saturday night, complete with interviews with Emma, her parents, and the publisher. 'Comparisons with J.K. Rowling are perhaps premature', said Sky. Yes indeed, I think one could say that.
Before we go any further, let's get one thing clear. If Emma Maree and her publisher have managed to sell a decent number of copies of her book, congratulations to them. I am delighted. I am always pleased when anyone achieves even a modest degree of success in the book world, because God knows it doesn't happen very often.
Having said that, I have to go on to say that, for me, this story in the Times has all the earmarks of a load of old cobblers.
First of all, there's that 50,000 figure for books sold. Now that's a nice round number, isn't it? It's not 48,874, or 52,389, you notice. It's 50,000. And is that 50,000 books that customers have actually bought and paid for, sales which will show up on Bookscan? Or is it 50,000 copies that have been shipped, and are sitting on booksellers' shelves somewhere, waiting for buyers? Or is it even 50,000 copies that have simply been printed, and are warehoused by the hopeful publisher? All of these are questions which would occur to anyone who knows anything about the book trade, but the Times hasn't bothered to ask them.
And then there's the publisher, which is a firm called Aultbea Publishing Company. I did a search on Google for "Aultbea Publishing Company" and found 204 references, condensed into 9 to avoid repetitions. These 9 entries suggest that Aultbea publishes a small number (3?) of journals of a scientific/technical nature, dealing with pharmaceuticals and health products. An example is Pharma-Supplements Now. The company does not appear to have its own web site, but it does appear to be the power behind the web sites for the individual journals.
The Times tells us that, when Emma had finished her book, she consulted the internet to find a publisher. Did she indeed. It's hard to see how she found Aultbea that way. Even today I can find no internet reference to Aultbea being interested in children's books. (Amazon tells us, by the way, that Aultbea have published one other children's book, The Adventures of Little Mo, by Jessie McDonald, and no other books of any kind.)
Take a look at the entry for Emma Maree Urquhart's Dragon Tamers on Amazon.co.uk. This tells us that Emma's book is 128 pages long. And when I looked first looked at the page the book had an Amazon sales rank 0f 66. Ten minutes later, the ranking had changed to 90. A bit later still, it went to 40. All of which suggests, if nothing else, that the story in the Times (and, for all I know, every other paper) has caused people to go online and buy the book. But what rank would it have been, say, last Tuesday, before the press coverage began?
And how, I ask myself, did a small magazine publisher with no standing whatever in the book trade manage to shift 50,000 copies in today's market? Did they use the sales and distribution services of some other company? If so, which? (On Amazon, by the way, delivery is promised in 3 to 5 weeks.) It's all possible, I suppose, in principle -- but how was it done? The Times didn't ask, so we don't know.
One way and another, the Times piece about Dragon Tamers looks very much like an Aultbea press release reproduced pretty well verbatim. And I'm afraid that, for the Times, that really isn't good enough. It's one thing for the paper to take on a tabloid shape; it's quite another for it to take on tabloid habits.
Well, as I said before, good luck to Dragon Tamers and all who sail in her. But personally I do find it difficult to believe that a firm with no track record in book publishing has sold 50,000 copies in six weeks. I doubt whether the flurry of excitement over Dragon Tamers is going to last very long, and in the meantime my faith in the Times's passion for accuracy has not been increased by this story.
As if that article wasn't enough to test my patience, there was also a piece in Saturday's Times about the effect that Gillian McKeith is having on the sales of health foods. (McKeith, you may recall, is the author of You Are What You Eat, and stars on Channel 4.) What has happened, according to the Times article, is that the foods which the lovely Ms McKeith recommends have been shifting off the shelves in large numbers.
The story itself is accurate. I have no doubt about that. For one thing, I had noticed myself that Sainsbury's had sold out of aduki beans. But in my opinion the Times, which is regarded by some members of the public as a reliable source of information, might at least have pointed out that the McKeith pronouncements on diet are of questionable value. See my posts of 11 August 2004 and 21 January 2005 to find out in detail why I hold that view; but briefly, the lady's 'scientific' statements have been systematically demolished by journalists who know what they're talking about.
Ben Goldacre, in the Guardian, describes McKeith as 'a menace to the public understanding of science, and anyone who gives her a platform should be ashamed of themselves.' But the Times mentions none of this.
In the days when I worked on a newspaper (47 years ago), the first thing a reporter would do, when working on a story like this, was to send a minion (me) scurrying off to the clippings library to see what had been written previously about the person in question. Did the Times reporter do this? Did he trouble to do a Google? If so, he can hardly have failed to notice that many observers have profound reservations about McKeith on diet.
The Times also refers to McKeith as 'Dr' McKeith' at the end of the article, and I would expect any responsible journalist who writes about this lady to have noticed that her claim to that title is questionable, to say the least. The current television series very definitely does not mention the title 'Dr' -- and with bloody good reason, because there are laws about that kind of thing.
Mind you, McKeith's p.r. company is reportedly Max Clifford Associates. So that would explain why the Times didn't feel it necessary to do much checking. Good ole Max is of course a byword for accuracy and probity in his dealings with the press.
All in all, Saturday 5 February 2005 was not, I suggest, a good day for the Times. But it was a pretty good day for p.r. companies.
'500 boys homeless!' screamed the Daily Mirror; though nobody was homeless because the fire wasn't in that sort of a building, and in any case the boys weren't there. The Times, on the other hand, got the details almost dead right, with one trivial exception.
This was pretty much what one would expect, and people of my age generally regard the Times as an authoritative source of accurate news. But by golly I'm beginning to wonder. Saturday's edition carried two very dubious articles.
First, there was a report about a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Emma Maree Urquhart, whose first novel, Dragon Tamers, is said to have sold 50,000 copies. This story was also featured on Sky television news on Saturday night, complete with interviews with Emma, her parents, and the publisher. 'Comparisons with J.K. Rowling are perhaps premature', said Sky. Yes indeed, I think one could say that.
Before we go any further, let's get one thing clear. If Emma Maree and her publisher have managed to sell a decent number of copies of her book, congratulations to them. I am delighted. I am always pleased when anyone achieves even a modest degree of success in the book world, because God knows it doesn't happen very often.
Having said that, I have to go on to say that, for me, this story in the Times has all the earmarks of a load of old cobblers.
First of all, there's that 50,000 figure for books sold. Now that's a nice round number, isn't it? It's not 48,874, or 52,389, you notice. It's 50,000. And is that 50,000 books that customers have actually bought and paid for, sales which will show up on Bookscan? Or is it 50,000 copies that have been shipped, and are sitting on booksellers' shelves somewhere, waiting for buyers? Or is it even 50,000 copies that have simply been printed, and are warehoused by the hopeful publisher? All of these are questions which would occur to anyone who knows anything about the book trade, but the Times hasn't bothered to ask them.
And then there's the publisher, which is a firm called Aultbea Publishing Company. I did a search on Google for "Aultbea Publishing Company" and found 204 references, condensed into 9 to avoid repetitions. These 9 entries suggest that Aultbea publishes a small number (3?) of journals of a scientific/technical nature, dealing with pharmaceuticals and health products. An example is Pharma-Supplements Now. The company does not appear to have its own web site, but it does appear to be the power behind the web sites for the individual journals.
The Times tells us that, when Emma had finished her book, she consulted the internet to find a publisher. Did she indeed. It's hard to see how she found Aultbea that way. Even today I can find no internet reference to Aultbea being interested in children's books. (Amazon tells us, by the way, that Aultbea have published one other children's book, The Adventures of Little Mo, by Jessie McDonald, and no other books of any kind.)
Take a look at the entry for Emma Maree Urquhart's Dragon Tamers on Amazon.co.uk. This tells us that Emma's book is 128 pages long. And when I looked first looked at the page the book had an Amazon sales rank 0f 66. Ten minutes later, the ranking had changed to 90. A bit later still, it went to 40. All of which suggests, if nothing else, that the story in the Times (and, for all I know, every other paper) has caused people to go online and buy the book. But what rank would it have been, say, last Tuesday, before the press coverage began?
And how, I ask myself, did a small magazine publisher with no standing whatever in the book trade manage to shift 50,000 copies in today's market? Did they use the sales and distribution services of some other company? If so, which? (On Amazon, by the way, delivery is promised in 3 to 5 weeks.) It's all possible, I suppose, in principle -- but how was it done? The Times didn't ask, so we don't know.
One way and another, the Times piece about Dragon Tamers looks very much like an Aultbea press release reproduced pretty well verbatim. And I'm afraid that, for the Times, that really isn't good enough. It's one thing for the paper to take on a tabloid shape; it's quite another for it to take on tabloid habits.
Well, as I said before, good luck to Dragon Tamers and all who sail in her. But personally I do find it difficult to believe that a firm with no track record in book publishing has sold 50,000 copies in six weeks. I doubt whether the flurry of excitement over Dragon Tamers is going to last very long, and in the meantime my faith in the Times's passion for accuracy has not been increased by this story.
As if that article wasn't enough to test my patience, there was also a piece in Saturday's Times about the effect that Gillian McKeith is having on the sales of health foods. (McKeith, you may recall, is the author of You Are What You Eat, and stars on Channel 4.) What has happened, according to the Times article, is that the foods which the lovely Ms McKeith recommends have been shifting off the shelves in large numbers.
The story itself is accurate. I have no doubt about that. For one thing, I had noticed myself that Sainsbury's had sold out of aduki beans. But in my opinion the Times, which is regarded by some members of the public as a reliable source of information, might at least have pointed out that the McKeith pronouncements on diet are of questionable value. See my posts of 11 August 2004 and 21 January 2005 to find out in detail why I hold that view; but briefly, the lady's 'scientific' statements have been systematically demolished by journalists who know what they're talking about.
Ben Goldacre, in the Guardian, describes McKeith as 'a menace to the public understanding of science, and anyone who gives her a platform should be ashamed of themselves.' But the Times mentions none of this.
In the days when I worked on a newspaper (47 years ago), the first thing a reporter would do, when working on a story like this, was to send a minion (me) scurrying off to the clippings library to see what had been written previously about the person in question. Did the Times reporter do this? Did he trouble to do a Google? If so, he can hardly have failed to notice that many observers have profound reservations about McKeith on diet.
The Times also refers to McKeith as 'Dr' McKeith' at the end of the article, and I would expect any responsible journalist who writes about this lady to have noticed that her claim to that title is questionable, to say the least. The current television series very definitely does not mention the title 'Dr' -- and with bloody good reason, because there are laws about that kind of thing.
Mind you, McKeith's p.r. company is reportedly Max Clifford Associates. So that would explain why the Times didn't feel it necessary to do much checking. Good ole Max is of course a byword for accuracy and probity in his dealings with the press.
All in all, Saturday 5 February 2005 was not, I suggest, a good day for the Times. But it was a pretty good day for p.r. companies.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Jonathan Stroud: The Amulet of Samarkand
Strictly speaking, The Amulet of Samarkand is a children's book. Ten years and up is said to be the age range aimed at, and my local library has it tagged as a Young Adult book. However, it looked interesting to me (perhaps because I am about to enter my second childhood) so I read it.
And you know what? It isn't at all bad. In fact it's very good. One thing we can say for certain is that Stroud is a pro. He knows how to bolt together a novel, which is more than can be said for some much-praised names.
Amulet is the first book in a trilogy about a 5,000-year-old djinni, or demon, called Bartimaeus. As this one fact suggests, the book is all about magicians, magic, summoning up powers from another place, et cetera. It is set in a sort of parallel-universe London. Oh, and the magicians in this world are far from admirable. The one who calls Bartimaeus up from the depths (or wherever) is a young -- very young -- magician's apprentice called Nathaniel.
The outcome of this story is never much in doubt, but I found it gripping because of Stroud's masterly technique. Before becoming a full-time writer he worked as an editor in a firm which publishes children's books, and he clearly didn't waste his time there. He learnt more than most about narrative technique, and he discovered what interests young readers. (And old ones too.)
Amulet is a wee bit long for my taste, but then everything is these days. And if you're looking for a good read, and you don't mind people on buses giving you funny looks, then you could, believe me, do a lot worse. I recommend it. But you do need, of course, to be receptive to a bit of fantasy.
There is a special web site devoted to the Bartimaeus trilogy, but it is so heavily graphic and takes so long to load that I'm afraid I gave up on it. Much more rewarding is the interview with Stroud which was organised by Write Away. This features some unusually intelligent and perceptive questions, plus interesting answers.
The second book in the series is already out: The Golem's Eye. Stroud also wrote three earlier novels for young readers, but judging by the comments on Amazon these are not quite as successful as the Bartimaeus books. Which is hardly surprising. As I keep saying, it does take writers a few books to get into their stride. If only publishers would give them the chance.
And you know what? It isn't at all bad. In fact it's very good. One thing we can say for certain is that Stroud is a pro. He knows how to bolt together a novel, which is more than can be said for some much-praised names.
Amulet is the first book in a trilogy about a 5,000-year-old djinni, or demon, called Bartimaeus. As this one fact suggests, the book is all about magicians, magic, summoning up powers from another place, et cetera. It is set in a sort of parallel-universe London. Oh, and the magicians in this world are far from admirable. The one who calls Bartimaeus up from the depths (or wherever) is a young -- very young -- magician's apprentice called Nathaniel.
The outcome of this story is never much in doubt, but I found it gripping because of Stroud's masterly technique. Before becoming a full-time writer he worked as an editor in a firm which publishes children's books, and he clearly didn't waste his time there. He learnt more than most about narrative technique, and he discovered what interests young readers. (And old ones too.)
Amulet is a wee bit long for my taste, but then everything is these days. And if you're looking for a good read, and you don't mind people on buses giving you funny looks, then you could, believe me, do a lot worse. I recommend it. But you do need, of course, to be receptive to a bit of fantasy.
There is a special web site devoted to the Bartimaeus trilogy, but it is so heavily graphic and takes so long to load that I'm afraid I gave up on it. Much more rewarding is the interview with Stroud which was organised by Write Away. This features some unusually intelligent and perceptive questions, plus interesting answers.
The second book in the series is already out: The Golem's Eye. Stroud also wrote three earlier novels for young readers, but judging by the comments on Amazon these are not quite as successful as the Bartimaeus books. Which is hardly surprising. As I keep saying, it does take writers a few books to get into their stride. If only publishers would give them the chance.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Royalties for secondhand books
Today's Times carries several letters on the question of whether authors should receive a royalty whenever a copy of one of their books is sold secondhand.
The third letter makes it clear that this issue was kicked off by A.S. Byatt, and the only Google reference I can find suggests that Byatt was apparently miffed that used stuff was being offered on Amazon, side by side with the new edition, for considerably less money. And what's more -- shock horror -- the author doesn't get any royalty on the used book sale.
Well now, as usual I will try to refrain from ad hominem -- or in this case ad feminam -- criticism. Let's just say that the idea that you can somehow arrange for authors to be paid a royalty every time one of their books is sold on a market stall strikes me as being one of the most wildly impractical schemes that I have heard of in a long time.
It would, presumably, require legislation, and given that we have an eminently sensible government, renowned worldwide for its sagacity, there is no chance of that coming about. Everyone would realise that the police have got far more important things to do with their time than go round checking whether Mr Bloggs at the Used Books For U emporium was keeping proper records. For a start, Mr Plod has to stop all those wicked people hunting foxes, so he's much to busy to worry about books.
One way and another, therefore, it seems to me that the lovely Antonia's scheme is a bit of a non-starter.
The Times correspondents certainly think so. One bookshop proprietor goes further. 'During 30 years of new and second-hand bookselling,' he says, 'I have fended off the hordes of customers trying to sell back to me last year’s over-hyped, second-rate bestsellers. Authors should refund their royalties on books so soon unloved and discarded.'
And he adds more abuse: 'As it happens, publishers, with their cardboard “cloth” covers, yellowing paper and unyielding bindings, have nearly perfected the book that disintegrates before it can be resold.'
Right on, brother. A friend of mine recently showed me a marvellous copy of Burckhardt's Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, dating from about 1935. He had bought it on abebooks, and was mighty impressed with the speed of delivery. And the point about this book, of course, is that it was beautifully designed and printed, heavily illustrated, a pleasure to look at it, and in pretty near perfect condition after 70 years. It is clearly good for another 70 years. You can't say that about most books being printed today.
Another Times correspondent is even sniffier about the Byatt proposal. 'I have already removed Dame Antonia Byatt’s books from the shelves of our second-hand bookshop. If she does not want us to sell them without giving her a cut (again), she is welcome to come and collect them from us free of charge.'
Oh dear. If I might offer a comment: Authors would be better advised to campaign for a proper royalty on first-time sales from their publisher's warehouse than to worry about royalties on secondhand copies. As I have pointed out more than once (see my post of 21 October 2004), some of the wonderful cut-price offers that are made to readers are so structured that, under the terms of a typical contract, the author will get nothing at all.
The third letter makes it clear that this issue was kicked off by A.S. Byatt, and the only Google reference I can find suggests that Byatt was apparently miffed that used stuff was being offered on Amazon, side by side with the new edition, for considerably less money. And what's more -- shock horror -- the author doesn't get any royalty on the used book sale.
Well now, as usual I will try to refrain from ad hominem -- or in this case ad feminam -- criticism. Let's just say that the idea that you can somehow arrange for authors to be paid a royalty every time one of their books is sold on a market stall strikes me as being one of the most wildly impractical schemes that I have heard of in a long time.
It would, presumably, require legislation, and given that we have an eminently sensible government, renowned worldwide for its sagacity, there is no chance of that coming about. Everyone would realise that the police have got far more important things to do with their time than go round checking whether Mr Bloggs at the Used Books For U emporium was keeping proper records. For a start, Mr Plod has to stop all those wicked people hunting foxes, so he's much to busy to worry about books.
One way and another, therefore, it seems to me that the lovely Antonia's scheme is a bit of a non-starter.
The Times correspondents certainly think so. One bookshop proprietor goes further. 'During 30 years of new and second-hand bookselling,' he says, 'I have fended off the hordes of customers trying to sell back to me last year’s over-hyped, second-rate bestsellers. Authors should refund their royalties on books so soon unloved and discarded.'
And he adds more abuse: 'As it happens, publishers, with their cardboard “cloth” covers, yellowing paper and unyielding bindings, have nearly perfected the book that disintegrates before it can be resold.'
Right on, brother. A friend of mine recently showed me a marvellous copy of Burckhardt's Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, dating from about 1935. He had bought it on abebooks, and was mighty impressed with the speed of delivery. And the point about this book, of course, is that it was beautifully designed and printed, heavily illustrated, a pleasure to look at it, and in pretty near perfect condition after 70 years. It is clearly good for another 70 years. You can't say that about most books being printed today.
Another Times correspondent is even sniffier about the Byatt proposal. 'I have already removed Dame Antonia Byatt’s books from the shelves of our second-hand bookshop. If she does not want us to sell them without giving her a cut (again), she is welcome to come and collect them from us free of charge.'
Oh dear. If I might offer a comment: Authors would be better advised to campaign for a proper royalty on first-time sales from their publisher's warehouse than to worry about royalties on secondhand copies. As I have pointed out more than once (see my post of 21 October 2004), some of the wonderful cut-price offers that are made to readers are so structured that, under the terms of a typical contract, the author will get nothing at all.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Unoriginal thoughts
There are, I suspect, few original thoughts in publishing. But there is always someone reading a thought for the first time. So, just in case... here are a few things that you may not have heard or thought about before.
Booktrade.info has a link to an article by John Sutherland in the Guardian on Monday 31 January. This says much the same things that I said in my blog post on 24 January, namely that the system of literary prizes simply magnifies the winner-take-all mechanism which is highly destructive of writers' interests.
What happens when book X wins a major prize is that all the publicity, and consequently sales, centres upon that one book, leaving the rest out in the cold. As I pointed out only yesterday, in the US market last year, 200 books provided 10 per cent of the sales. In other words, you are either massive or you are nothing. (Same thing with actors, by the way.)
This blockbuster system does publishers and booksellers no harm at all, provided the stream of blockbusters is uninterrupted. But it is acutely damaging to writers, most of whom can't get published at all. Even if they do end up in print, sales are likely to be tiny.
Sutherland's article highlights the situation of Andrea Levy. Prior to winning the Orange Prize, last summer, her novel Small Island had sold 2,000 copies. Post Orange, and now with the Whitbread Book of the Year award too, she is a big-timer. The bookshops will pile her stuff high.
But... As Sutherland points out, and as I pointed out a week earlier, there is no sensible reason for supposing that Andrea Levy, excellent writer though she may be, is somehow streets ahead of everyone else on the shortlist for those two prizes -- or even for supposing that she is a better writer than those who never even made the shortlist. Different novels suit different folks. But that's not the way the system works.
Another link on booktrade.info is to an article by Philip Jones, editor of the Bookseller. Jones draws attention to the fact that, in the UK, ownership of the big publishing firms has shifted from US-based conglomerates to European ones. The Germans, the French, and the British are now the contenders for ownership of any significant UK publishing companies. Random House, which within living memory was a proud and prestigious independent New York literary house, is now part of the German monster Bertelsmann! (Don't mention the war.) And Jones goes on to speculate whether these take-over kings might not soon begin to threaten to buy some of the more vulnerable US companies, such as Simon and Schuster.
Here again, this is not an original thought. Plenty of people have noticed it before. Some time back, beginning on 30 December, I wrote a lengthy review of Eric de Bellaigue's book British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s. After it appeared, Eric kindly wrote me a note. In it, he commented on the European take-over of great swathes of intellectual property which had once been American-owned, and said how surprised he was that the Americans seem to have accepted this quite calmly. Maybe the explanation lies in the fact that publishing is such a low-profit business that no one really cares very much who owns it.
Insofar as there is any money in publishing, it is to be found in the really dull bits, such as hymn books and textbooks. I am reminded of this by another link in booktrade.info to an article which claims that US college students are being charged too much for their textbooks.
This story is as old as the hills. Nearly twenty years ago I was a Fulbright Fellow at an American university, and this university had a bookshop the size of an aircraft hangar. When I first went into it I decided that it was the worst bookshop I had ever been into. The floor was bare concrete; the books were stacked in lines, on wooden pallets, still in the packets of 20 or 30, as loaded by the publisher. There was no attempt to make the place interesting or pleasant at all.
Weeks later I discovered how wrong I was. I realised by that time that American college teaching is heavily textbook orientated. Every student on a given course simply has to have at least one set book, and probably several. And some of these things cost (at 2005 prices) over $100 each. What this meant, at this 'badly managed' bookshop, was that it was generating some of the highest sales figures per square foot of floor space of any bookshop in America! See, it's not the glamorous bits that really make the money.
Booktrade.info has a link to an article by John Sutherland in the Guardian on Monday 31 January. This says much the same things that I said in my blog post on 24 January, namely that the system of literary prizes simply magnifies the winner-take-all mechanism which is highly destructive of writers' interests.
What happens when book X wins a major prize is that all the publicity, and consequently sales, centres upon that one book, leaving the rest out in the cold. As I pointed out only yesterday, in the US market last year, 200 books provided 10 per cent of the sales. In other words, you are either massive or you are nothing. (Same thing with actors, by the way.)
This blockbuster system does publishers and booksellers no harm at all, provided the stream of blockbusters is uninterrupted. But it is acutely damaging to writers, most of whom can't get published at all. Even if they do end up in print, sales are likely to be tiny.
Sutherland's article highlights the situation of Andrea Levy. Prior to winning the Orange Prize, last summer, her novel Small Island had sold 2,000 copies. Post Orange, and now with the Whitbread Book of the Year award too, she is a big-timer. The bookshops will pile her stuff high.
But... As Sutherland points out, and as I pointed out a week earlier, there is no sensible reason for supposing that Andrea Levy, excellent writer though she may be, is somehow streets ahead of everyone else on the shortlist for those two prizes -- or even for supposing that she is a better writer than those who never even made the shortlist. Different novels suit different folks. But that's not the way the system works.
Another link on booktrade.info is to an article by Philip Jones, editor of the Bookseller. Jones draws attention to the fact that, in the UK, ownership of the big publishing firms has shifted from US-based conglomerates to European ones. The Germans, the French, and the British are now the contenders for ownership of any significant UK publishing companies. Random House, which within living memory was a proud and prestigious independent New York literary house, is now part of the German monster Bertelsmann! (Don't mention the war.) And Jones goes on to speculate whether these take-over kings might not soon begin to threaten to buy some of the more vulnerable US companies, such as Simon and Schuster.
Here again, this is not an original thought. Plenty of people have noticed it before. Some time back, beginning on 30 December, I wrote a lengthy review of Eric de Bellaigue's book British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s. After it appeared, Eric kindly wrote me a note. In it, he commented on the European take-over of great swathes of intellectual property which had once been American-owned, and said how surprised he was that the Americans seem to have accepted this quite calmly. Maybe the explanation lies in the fact that publishing is such a low-profit business that no one really cares very much who owns it.
Insofar as there is any money in publishing, it is to be found in the really dull bits, such as hymn books and textbooks. I am reminded of this by another link in booktrade.info to an article which claims that US college students are being charged too much for their textbooks.
This story is as old as the hills. Nearly twenty years ago I was a Fulbright Fellow at an American university, and this university had a bookshop the size of an aircraft hangar. When I first went into it I decided that it was the worst bookshop I had ever been into. The floor was bare concrete; the books were stacked in lines, on wooden pallets, still in the packets of 20 or 30, as loaded by the publisher. There was no attempt to make the place interesting or pleasant at all.
Weeks later I discovered how wrong I was. I realised by that time that American college teaching is heavily textbook orientated. Every student on a given course simply has to have at least one set book, and probably several. And some of these things cost (at 2005 prices) over $100 each. What this meant, at this 'badly managed' bookshop, was that it was generating some of the highest sales figures per square foot of floor space of any bookshop in America! See, it's not the glamorous bits that really make the money.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
The Book Standard
Today also sees the launch of The Book Standard, which is a highly commercial site intended for book-trade professionals and a few readers. It is the brainchild of trade-magazine publisher VNU, which apparently is the parent company of a host of book-trade and showbiz journals, such as The Bookseller, Kirkus Review, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, et al. VNU also owns Nielsen Bookscan, which collects data on sales of books from some 6,000 (US) locations.
Some of this site's content is going to be free, allegedly, and some of it will cost you $9.95 a month. Whether any of it is going to be worth reading remains to be seen. Today, however, you can find a link to a story about a blogger who got a book contract, and another one to a report on the firing of the editor of the Paris Review. For a magazine with such a small circulation (10,000 copies), the PR gets one hell of a lot of press coverage.
Another snippet which is buried fairly deep in the site is that, in the US market last year, 200 books represented 10 per cent of all sales. This demonstrates, should you need a reminder, the power of the blockbuster and the winner-take-all mechanisms which currently operate.
The Book Standard site is definitely US orientated, but the book world is a global village these days so you can reasonably expect at least some coverage of the UK and other English-speaking nations, with no doubt the occasional peek at the rest.
Some of this site's content is going to be free, allegedly, and some of it will cost you $9.95 a month. Whether any of it is going to be worth reading remains to be seen. Today, however, you can find a link to a story about a blogger who got a book contract, and another one to a report on the firing of the editor of the Paris Review. For a magazine with such a small circulation (10,000 copies), the PR gets one hell of a lot of press coverage.
Another snippet which is buried fairly deep in the site is that, in the US market last year, 200 books represented 10 per cent of all sales. This demonstrates, should you need a reminder, the power of the blockbuster and the winner-take-all mechanisms which currently operate.
The Book Standard site is definitely US orientated, but the book world is a global village these days so you can reasonably expect at least some coverage of the UK and other English-speaking nations, with no doubt the occasional peek at the rest.
GOB in book form
Excuse me if I immodestly point out that you can now buy the Grumpy Old Bookman in book form: to be precise, in trade paperback format, available from most good bookshops and to be had from Amazon for a mere £9.09 and possibly free delivery if you buy something else as well.
Now, let's face it, I do not expect many readers of this blog to rush over to Amazon and buy a copy. The book consists of 130 posts from the first seven months of the GOB (March to September 2004), and so there is nothing in it that you cannot read for free by clicking over to the archives, in the column on your right. However, you may care to bear the existence of this book in mind when next you need a present for a bookish friend. He or she can always put it in the guest room; or the bathroom; which, come to think of it, is probably the best place for it; alongside Seneca's Letters from a Stoic, which also consists of bathroom-length essays. Though Seneca is, of course, a rather superior writer.
Now, let's face it, I do not expect many readers of this blog to rush over to Amazon and buy a copy. The book consists of 130 posts from the first seven months of the GOB (March to September 2004), and so there is nothing in it that you cannot read for free by clicking over to the archives, in the column on your right. However, you may care to bear the existence of this book in mind when next you need a present for a bookish friend. He or she can always put it in the guest room; or the bathroom; which, come to think of it, is probably the best place for it; alongside Seneca's Letters from a Stoic, which also consists of bathroom-length essays. Though Seneca is, of course, a rather superior writer.
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